Saudi Arabia's oil exports to the US last year sank below 1m barrels a day for the first time in two decades just as China's purchases climbed above that level, highlighting a shift in the geopolitics of oil from west to east.

ASTANA (Reuters) - Kazakh state oil company KazMunaiGas wants to acquire a stake in Karachaganak, a gas condensate project led by BG (BG.L) and Eni (ENI.MI), KazMunaiGas head Kairgeldy Kabyldin said on Thursday.

Toyota is set to face yet another safety probe by US regulators into one of its vehicles, this time involving potential steering problems in 2009 and 2010 Corolla saloons, a transportation department official said on Wednesday.

The planned overhaul of US financial rules prompted Standard & Poor's to warn on Tuesday it might downgrade the credit ratings of Citigroup and Bank of America on concerns that the shake-up would make it less likely that the banks would be bailed out by US taxpayers if they ran into trouble again.

The Rothschild banking dynasty is to appoint a non-family member as chief executive for the first time in its 212-year history, as the group seeks to adapt its management structure to the post-crisis climate.

In the years before the crisis, there was a race to the bottom, with countries competing on the "lightness" of regulation. Iceland may have been the winner of that race, but its citizens were the losers. As the consequences of these failures continue to manifest themselves and discussions of the new regulatory regime proceed, the problem of global co-ordination has moved centre stage.

When Lloyd Blankfein met politicians in London a little while ago he brushed aside warnings that investment banks faced higher taxes if they ignored the rising public outcry about multibillion-dollar bonus pools. The Goldman chief executive seemed to believe governments would not dare.

Japan's newspapers, which are among the world's largest by circulation, will not decline as fast as their crisis-hit counterparts in the US and Europe, the president of the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's second-largest newspaper, said in an interview with the Financial Times.